Italian actor declared brain dead after hanging scene goes wrong

(FoxNews.com) - Italian actor Raphael Schumacher was declared brain dead Friday after accidentally strangling himself on a theater stage during a hanging scene.

Schumacher, 27, was performing in a production at the Pisa’s Teatro Lux on Jan. 30 when a medical student in the audience noticed that the rope around his neck looked to be too tight and Schumacher appeared to be in distress, according to Variety.

Pisa University Hospital doctors declared him brain dead five days after the incident.

“The noose should have been fake and a harness should have caught him if he fell. I cannot explain how an incident like this happened,” an actor involved with the play told the Independent on Thursday.

The daily il Giornale quoted the directors as saying the piece, about an adolescent's existential crisis, was supposed to end with a fake pistol shot, but that Schumacher changed it without informing them.

The news agency ANSA reported Friday that prosecutors are investigating whether a lapse in safety procedure was to blame, with the focus on a possible stage accident rather than suicide.